There are stories that refuse to stay still.

Medusa has been carried through centuries as a monster, a warning, a figure placed at the edge of fear - and yet her story has never settled there.

In this episode of Hex & Muse, we return to Medusa with care, tracing her origins in ancient Greek mythology, her transformation through the writings of Ovid, and the way her image has moved through art, power, and culture across time.

We explore the meaning of her gaze; how it shifts the act of seeing itself and how her story has been reclaimed in the present, where Medusa has become a powerful symbol for survival, autonomy, and living within a body that has been changed.

This is an episode about myth, but also about what myth holds.

About who gets to tell a story.

And what happens when that story is taken back.

• Ovid - Metamorphoses, Book IV
  https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/Metamorphoses4.php
• Hesiod - Theogony (Gorgons + early myth references)
  https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hes.+Theog.+270
• Apollodorus - The Library, Book II (Perseus myth)
  https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Apollod.+2.4
• Theoi Greek Mythology - Medusa & Gorgons
  https://www.theoi.com/Pontios/Gorgones.html
• Caravaggio - Medusa (c. 1597)
  https://www.uffizi.it/en/artworks/medusa
• Benvenuto Cellini - Perseus with the Head of Medusa
  https://www.museumsinflorence.com/musei/perseus.html
  
  

• Marina Warner - Monuments & Maidens: The Allegory of the Female Form
• Mary Beard - Women & Power: A Manifesto
• Natalie Haynes - Pandora’s Jar: Women in the Greek Myths
• Jess Zimmerman -Women and Other Monsters
• Emily Wilson (trans.) - The Odyssey (for broader myth context and gender reading)

Hex & Muse is recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. I pay my deepest respects to their Elders past and present - and to all First Nations people, whose stories and spirits continue to shape this land.

Follow along for more folklore, magic, and mythic musings:
Instagram: @hexandmuse
Website: www.hexandmuse.com

Hex & Muse is a spellbound journal of folklore, magic, art, and the sacred feminine - told through cinematic storytelling and whispered histories.
From my altar to yours… thank you for listening.

As the Northern Hemisphere turns toward the light, we arrive at the spring equinox - known in many pagan traditions as Ostara.

In this episode of Hex & Muse, we explore the stories, symbols, and seasonal rhythms that shape this moment. From ancient myths of return and renewal to the folklore of hares and eggs, we trace how these traditions have travelled through time - eventually forming what we now recognise as Easter.

Blending mythology, history, and modern ritual, this episode invites you to reconnect with the turning of the earth and the quiet beginnings that come with it.

Historical & Mythological Sources

• Bede - The Reckoning of Time
  (Primary reference to Eostre and early spring festivals)
• The Golden Bough - James George Frazer
  (Comparative mythology - Adonis, Attis, seasonal cycles)
• Metamorphoses - Ovid
  (Greek myths including Persephone-related traditions)

Pagan Traditions & Seasonal Practice

• The Wheel of the Year - Pauline Campanelli
• Ostara: Rituals, Recipes & Lore for the Spring Equinox - Kerri Connor

🐇 Folklore & Easter Traditions

• Stations of the Sun - Ronald Hutton
  (Origins of British seasonal customs and festivals)
• The Oxford Companion to Food - Alan Davidson
  (History of Easter foods, including hot cross buns)

Optional Modern / Accessible Sources

• The British Museum -seasonal festivals & ancient rituals
• The National Trust - Easter traditions & folklore

Witches wheel Episode

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-witchs-wheel/id1820752122?i=1000713487773

Hex & Muse is recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. I pay my deepest respects to their Elders past and present - and to all First Nations people, whose stories and spirits continue to shape this land.

Follow along for more folklore, magic, and mythic musings:
Instagram: @hexandmuse
Website: www.hexandmuse.com

Hex & Muse is a spellbound journal of folklore, magic, art, and the sacred feminine - told through cinematic storytelling and whispered histories.
From my altar to yours… thank you for listening.

In this episode of Hex & Muse, we step into the Scottish witch trials — where thousands, most of them women, were accused and executed under the Witchcraft Act of 1563.

Through historical research and recorded testimony, we explore how fear became law, and how ordinary lives were transformed into accusation.

This episode was inspired in part by the work of the Witches of Scotland podcast:
https://www.witchesofscotland.com/podcast

References & Further Reading

• Goodare, Julian. The Scottish Witch-Hunt in Context. Manchester University Press, 2002.
• University of Edinburgh. Survey of Scottish Witchcraft Database. https://www.shc.ed.ac.uk/Research/witches/
• Larner, Christina. Enemies of God: The Witch-Hunt in Scotland. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981.
• Roper, Lyndal. Witch Craze: Terror and Fantasy in Baroque Germany. Yale University Press, 2004.
• Levack, Brian P. The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe. Routledge, 2016.
• Gaskill, Malcolm. Witchcraft: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2010.
• James VI of Scotland. Daemonologie. 1597.
• Sollee, Kristen J. Witches, Sluts, Feminists: Conjuring the Sex Positive. ThreeL Media, 2017.
• Witches of Scotland Campaign. https://www.witchesofscotland.com
• Witches of Scotland Podcast. https://www.witchesofscotland.com/podcast
• Scottish Parliament (2022). Statement by Nicola Sturgeon on the Scottish Witch Trials.

North Berwick Witch Trials (1590–1592)

Lilias Adie (d. 1704)

Maggie Wall (c. 1657, memorial)

Agnes Sampson (executed 1591)

Isobel Gowdie (confessions, 1662)

Janet Horne (executed 1727)

Hex & Muse is recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. I pay my deepest respects to their Elders past and present - and to all First Nations people, whose stories and spirits continue to shape this land.

Follow along for more folklore, magic, and mythic musings:
Instagram: @hexandmuse
Website: www.hexandmuse.com

Hex & Muse is a spellbound journal of folklore, magic, art, and the sacred feminine - told through cinematic storytelling and whispered histories.
From my altar to yours… thank you for listening.

Through the Gilded Eye - Witches, Goddesses & the Power of the Gaze

How has art shaped the way we see witches and powerful women?

In this episode of Hex & Muse, we step into the painted worlds of Circe, Lilith, and the witch archetype to explore how female power has been framed across centuries of art history.

From the spellbinding tension of John William Waterhouse’s Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses to the introspective sorcery of Alice Pike Barney’s Circe, the gaze surrounding these figures begins to shift. Through John Collier’s Lilith and Kiki Smith’s haunting sculptural reimagining, we encounter a mythic woman whose body has carried centuries of symbolism - temptation, autonomy, rebellion.

But when witches enter the frame, the atmosphere changes entirely.

In Francisco Goya’s Witches’ Sabbath (El Aquelarre), the witch becomes a spectacle of fear - a gathering framed through suspicion, darkness, and cultural anxiety. Yet in Leonora Carrington’s The Giantess (The Guardian of the Egg), female power appears differently: expansive, cosmic, and deeply integrated with the rhythms of the world.

Together these works reveal something subtle but powerful.

Sometimes the image invites us to witness a moment of spectacle.

Other times, the figure exists within her own world - sovereign, self-possessed, and unmoved by the gaze that watches her.

Because the most revealing question in front of a painting may not be what we see.

But where the image has placed us.

• John William Waterhouse — Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses
• Alice Pike Barney — Circe
• John Collier — Lilith
• Kiki Smith — Lilith (1994)
• Francisco Goya — Witches’ Sabbath (El Aquelarre)
• Leonora Carrington — The Giantess (The Guardian of the Egg)

• Art Renewal Center — Waterhouse, Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses https://www.artrenewal.org
• Smithsonian American Art Museum - Alice Pike Barney, Circe https://americanart.si.edu
• Art UK -John Collier, Lilith https://artuk.org
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art - Kiki Smith, Lilith https://www.metmuseum.org
• Museo del Prado - Francisco Goya, El Aquelarre (Witches’ Sabbath) https://www.museodelprado.es
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art - Leonora Carrington, The Giantess (The Guardian of the Egg) https://www.metmuseum.org

Hex & Muse is recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. I pay my deepest respects to their Elders past and present - and to all First Nations people, whose stories and spirits continue to shape this land.

Follow along for more folklore, magic, and mythic musings:
Instagram: @hexandmuse
Website: www.hexandmuse.com

Hex & Muse is a spellbound journal of folklore, magic, art, and the sacred feminine - told through cinematic storytelling and whispered histories.
From my altar to yours… thank you for listening.

A new rhythm is taking shape.

In this episode of Hex & Muse, we explore where we are right now on the Wheel of the Year, beneath the Moon, and between the closing energy of the Snake and the forward momentum of the Horse.

Blending folklore, astrology, lunar symbolism, and seasonal awareness, this episode reflects on clarity, endurance, and the quiet preparation that shapes what comes next - all grounded in the lived reality of southern hemisphere summer.

A thoughtful episode about attention, rhythm, and carrying insight forward.

Welcome Back <3

Hex & Muse is recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. I pay my deepest respects to their Elders past and present - and to all First Nations people, whose stories and spirits continue to shape this land.

Follow along for more folklore, magic, and mythic musings:
Instagram: @hexandmuse
Website: www.hexandmuse.com

Hex & Muse is a spellbound journal of folklore, magic, art, and the sacred feminine - told through cinematic storytelling and whispered histories.
From my altar to yours… thank you for listening.

This short episode marks the final page of Season One of Hex & Muse - a gentle closing ritual for a year of folklore, magic, art, and storytelling. I’m taking the rest of the year to finish uni, slow down, and actually breathe through the festive season, but I’ll return in the new year with fresh stories, rituals, and the beginning of Season Two. Thank you to everyone who has listened, shared, and helped this little community grow. Light a candle for the year we’ve lived, and I’ll see you soon.

Hex & Muse is recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. I pay my deepest respects to their Elders past and present - and to all First Nations people, whose stories and spirits continue to shape this land.

Follow along for more folklore, magic, and mythic musings:
Instagram: @hexandmuse
Website: www.hexandmuse.com

Hex & Muse is a spellbound journal of folklore, magic, art, and the sacred feminine - told through cinematic storytelling and whispered histories.
From my altar to yours… thank you for listening.

In this haunting and beautiful episode of Hex & Muse, we step into the storm that changed the world. Born of lightning and grief, Mary Shelley dreamt a monster into being and in doing so, gave birth to modern horror, science fiction, and a mirror for the human soul.

Through thunder over Lake Geneva, the ghost-story challenge at Villa Diodati, and the heartbreak that shaped Frankenstein, this episode traces how an eighteen-year-old woman stole fire from the gods and rewrote creation itself.

We explore her lineage daughter of revolutionaries, lover of poets, widow of fire and her quiet defiance in a world that feared the power of female imagination. Because Mary Shelley was never just the author of Frankenstein. She was the Modern Prometheus of gothic literature - the girl who gave the dark a heartbeat.

Featuring reflections on Guillermo del Toro’s forthcoming adaptation of Frankenstein, starring Jacob Elordi and Mia Goth.

⚡ Trigger Warning: This episode includes brief discussion of infant loss and grief, handled with tenderness and care.

✴︎ References & Further Reading

*Mary Shelley, * Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818 & 1831 editions).
William Godwin -An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793).
Mary Wollstonecraft - A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792).
Richard Holmes - Shelley: The Pursuit (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1974).
Miranda Seymour - Mary Shelley (John Murray, 2000).
Fiona Sampson - In Search of Mary Shelley: The Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein (Profile Books, 2018).
Anne K. Mellor - Mary Shelley: Her Life, Her Fiction, Her Monsters (Routledge, 1988).
Charlotte Gordon - Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley (Random House, 2015).
Kathleen Stocking -The Villa Diodati Circle: Byron, Polidori, Shelley & the Birth of Frankenstein (Oxford Classics, 1999).
Frances Wilson - The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth (for context on the Romantic circle).
Guillermo del Toro - Frankenstein (Netflix / forthcoming, starring Jacob Elordi & Mia Goth).

For deeper gothic and Romantic context:
The British Library “Discovering Literature: Romantics & Victorians.”
The Morgan Library - Frankenstein Manuscripts Project.
The Romantic Circles Online Archive - University of Maryland.

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, The Modern Prometheus, Romantic poets, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, John Polidori, Villa Diodati, Lake Geneva, gothic literature, science fiction origins, feminist writers, literary history, witchy podcast, Hex and Muse, women in literature, Guillermo del Toro Frankenstein, Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth, creative myth, female imagination, poetic storytelling, art and alchemy, haunting history, dark romanticism.

Hex & Muse is recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. I pay my deepest respects to their Elders past and present - and to all First Nations people, whose stories and spirits continue to shape this land.

Follow along for more folklore, magic, and mythic musings:
Instagram: @hexandmuse
Website: www.hexandmuse.com

Hex & Muse is a spellbound journal of folklore, magic, art, and the sacred feminine - told through cinematic storytelling and whispered histories.
From my altar to yours… thank you for listening.

As spring blooms in the southern world and autumn deepens in the north, the veil thins across both. Tonight, Hex & Muse crosses that unseen border to meet Nicnevin - the Hallow Queen of Scotland.

She rides through centuries of poetry, persecution, and myth: from Renaissance verse to witch-trial confessions, from the moors of Fife to the snow-clad peaks of Ben Nevis. Part goddess, part ghost, part faerie queen, Nicnevin is the keeper of thresholds - a spirit who walks between life and death, storm and stillness, the sacred and the forbidden.

In this journey through folklore and history, we trace her lineage to the ancient Cailleach, whose storm-grey plaid blankets the mountains in snow, and rediscover the witch not as a creature of fear, but as a guardian of balance and change.

Light your candle.
Step into the dark.

The Hallow Queen is riding.

Primary Mentions

• The Flyting of Montgomerie and Polwarth (c.1585) — Alexander Montgomerie’s poem; earliest known mention of Nicnevin.
• Trial of Nic Nevin, St Andrews (1569) — later chroniclers link this woman to the legend; connection uncertain.
• Confessions of Bessie Dunlop (1576) & Andro Man (1598) — both describe serving the “Queen of Elphame.” See Robert Pitcairn, Criminal Trials in Scotland (1833).

Folklore & Literature

• Robert Cromek, Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song (1808).
• Sir Walter Scott, Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft (1830).
• Katharine Briggs, A Dictionary of Fairies (1976).
• J. F. Campbell, Popular Tales of the West Highlands (1860).
• Lizanne Henderson & Edward J. Cowan, Scottish Fairy Belief: A History (2001).

The Cailleach & Seasonal Myth

• F. Marian McNeill, The Silver Bough (1957–68).
• James MacKillop, Dictionary of Celtic Mythology (Oxford, 1998).
• Folklore of the Corryvreckan Whirlpool — the Cailleach washes her plaid white, signalling winter (see Popular Tales of the West Highlands; Scotland’s Wonder – The Cailleach: Hag of Winter).

Modern Analyses & Context

• Ronald Hutton, The Witch: A History of Fear (Yale, 2017).
• Lizanne Henderson, Witchcraft and Folk Belief in the Age of Enlightenment (Palgrave, 2016).
• Alison Hanham, The Flyting of Montgomerie and Polwarth: Text and Commentary (1960).
• F. Marian McNeill, Hallowe’en: Its Origin, Rites and Ceremonies in the Scottish Tradition (1923).
• Dictionaries of the Scots Language (dsl.ac.uk) — entry for Nicnevin.
• Wikipedia — “Nicnevin” and “Cailleach” entries for linguistic and mythological summaries.

Hex & Muse is recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. I pay my deepest respects to their Elders past and present - and to all First Nations people, whose stories and spirits continue to shape this land.

Follow along for more folklore, magic, and mythic musings:
Instagram: @hexandmuse
Website: www.hexandmuse.com

Hex & Muse is a spellbound journal of folklore, magic, art, and the sacred feminine - told through cinematic storytelling and whispered histories.
From my altar to yours… thank you for listening.